Pentecost

Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed. Acts 19:1-10

One of the most popular literary characters in many homes to-day, expecially where there are children, is Winnie the Pooh. You remember he is the hero of the A.A.Milne book of that name, an amusing teddy-bear with the soul of a poet. As you would imagine some of the poetry is queer and not always is the poet successful. Once when the going was heavy he explained the situation by saying “poems and hums are not things that you get they are things that get you”

That is a great truth put in a simple way, a truth with which all poets would agree – because they know that their greatest thoughts are given to them. Some outside force, some vision of the unseen glory controls their minds. Poems they will agree get you.

We sum up the idea in a word and call it “Inspiration”

The same is true of the higher ranges of music and art. Two famous artists of a bygone generation, Millais and Bunre-Jones, met in their old age and talking about the subjects of pictures, one said to the other “they just crowd in upon me” and the story reminds me of an elderly minister who was both a good preacher and a good teacher. I asked him once where he got all his ideas form that he put into his sermons and what he said I will never forget, “Well, I just read far and wide with my subject in mind and then I light my pipe, and sit down in my study with a stub of a pencil and they just come” All this you see is evidence of a power outside a man to aid and supplement his own. In the religious life this power that inspires and helps us is the Holy Spirit. And all noble thoughts and all lofty visions and the joyous sense of forgiveness are not things that you get they are they are things that get you.

Or as Jesus said to Nicodemus “The wind bloweth where it listeth you hear the sound thereof but canst not tell whende it cometh or wither it goeth, so is everyone that is born of the spirit.”

Or as one of the finest of our Whitsuntide hymns puts it

“And His that gentle voice we hear

Soft as the breath of even,

That checks each fault, that calms each fear

And speak of Heaven.

And every virtue we possess

And every victory won

And every thoughts of holiness

Are His alone.

This is an important truth that we often overlook. It does away with the theory, so often preached to-day, that a man can save himself by the power of his own choice and his own free will. True a man’s redemption has somewhat to do with himself but if it has also to do with the church and everything to do with the Gift of God, the Holy Spirit.

But this doctrine of the Holy Spirit means more than that. It is to this gift that Paul is referring when in the strange story of a dozen men he met in Ephesus, living an impoverished kind of Christian life, he ask “did you received the Holy Ghost when ye believed?”

I wonder of how many of us Paul might ask the same question, and what does he mean?

To-day our thoughts turn to the story of Pentecost, the most striking story that history can provide of the out pouting of the Holy Spirit into human lives.

And don’t let us imagine that the experience is unique to that one occasion. The holy spirit has come through personal lives many times since, and when Paul asks this question it seems to me that he expected to find Christians living in this experience of Pentecost. We often miss the point about Pentecost. The important thing is not the strange physical phenomena – the wind and the fire – but the inward change in the lives of those who had received the Holy Spirit, and the changed outlook, and the influence they had upon others.

Have you received the Holy Ghost? Asks Paul and he proceeds to answer the question for us. The gifts of the spirit he says are, “Love, Joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” If your life is enriched with these blessings there can be do doubt as to the answer.

There were a number of People in Paul’s day who placed a lot of emphasis on the miraculous, but the Apostle answers them “Now concerning spiritual gifts” and gives a list including the abnormal and the miraculous, but he goes on “I show you a more excellent way” Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love I am become a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal” For him love was the supreme, the most precious gift of the Spirit.

But finally, one thing more, this is not all “To whittle down this gift of the Holy Spirit to the acquisition of a kindly heart is disastrous” (Dr Micklem)

The promise with the Holy Ghost is power. Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you.

One of the most glorious things about Pentecost was the courage that came with the gift of the Spirit to the weak and doubting disciples.

Power is still the mark of spirit filled men. I read a letter the other day written after a Coventry raid by a Christian there. He said that he had seen the flowering of nobility in the midst of destruction, and he spoke of the fellowship during the raid, as something quite new to him. They could take it he said that had the power to. I do not know my friend what we may yet have to endure but I do know that the Holy Ghost, the comforter, can give us power, and strength and courage in every circumstance. We think of the martyrs of the christian faith who faced evil and danger and persecution with a quiet dignity – with power, not of their own surely but from on high the gift of this same spirit.

So we may ask ourselves to-day “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?” and the answer is In the assurance we haven in our own hearts of the gifts of Pentecost.

The promise is to you and your children so it come happen now.

Pentecost 13^th May 1951 Sydney Street Methodist Church

The Ascension

The Ascension – Acts 1:1-11

I want to deal in this talk with the subject of the Ascension of Jesus. I have never dared to preach about it before but I seem to have been unable to put the idea out of my mind. It is I am afraid a very much neglected teaching… We fight shy of dealing with it perhaps because it cannot be treated as a natural occurrence. It is true the event cannot be explained naturally but let me say at once that if it cannot be explained in scientific terms, neither can science explain it away. The Christian religion is one of revelation rather than direct observation and actually we could not have known God at all had He not revealed Himself. He does of course leave us to discover some things for ourselves. Those discoveries constitute our science, but there are some things that are only matters of revelation and faith, because we cannot discover them by any other means.

The ascension is part of that revelation and we have to try and see what it means.

THE NECESSITY

It is very easy to see, I think, the necessity of Christ’s ascension. Since that God had become man it was inevitable.

He had dwelt amongst men as a man with men. But thus to become man was to be at the mercy of men. It left men free to either accept or reject his sovereignty. It was even possible for men to scorn His word and put Him to death. It was possible. In fact it happened.

He entered our history by birth, in the usual way and thus far He seemed likely to leave it in the usual way by death. But it couldn’t just end like that if God were to be true. The fact that Jesus did die shows how easily and completely goodness can be defeated when all the might of evil that men can muster is pitted against it.

If such a death had been the end of Christ’s life then victory would have remained with evil. But it wasn’t. The resurrection contradicts all that. Yet to prove that Jesus was sent from God wasn’t something more even necessary?

After his resurrection Jesus appeared to His disciples in many places and at various times. They were strange appearances too. He came to them through closed doors and met them in most surprising places. In fact they could never be quite sure when He was absent. But this kind of visitation couldn’t go on indefinitely. There were very dear and reassuring but they were localised. He could only be in one place at one time. And had He not promised to be with them always. He he not said that it was expedient that He should go away of the abiding presence of the comforter would not come. Yes there had to be more than the resurrection. He had to return to the Father. But how were the appearances to cease? How was that beloved body to be withdrawn from them so as not to leave them wondering if He would be coming again? It must be done in such a way that they knew they would see Him no more, and yet it must happen so that they knew he was the SON of GOD and that he had conquered. There new faith must be confirmed and assured. Yes since that the word had become flesh and dwelt amongst men the ascension was necessary.

And so – we know the story – he gathered His followers over towards Bethany and after He has blessed them etc they saw Him ascend and while they still watched the a cloud receive Him out of their sight.

I know that men have tried to argue that all the after resurrection appearances of Jesus and not less the story of the ascension were the imaginations of overwrought minds, but they haven’t explained why or how they ceased to be overwrought on one and the same day.

It is very unlikely that so many would be subject to such an imagination as the ascension at the same time. And it is strange that none of the disciples seem to have seen Him after. The whole story hangs together quite consistently. If this did not happen then what DID? There would be more confusion and a tremendous gap if the event of the ascension were omitted from our gospel.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE ASCENSION? then

What has it to teach us?

First as Paul says “He who began a good work will perform it unto the end.” God completes what he commences. Men may frustrate even delay the work but they can only delay it. The ascension of Jesus was not a retreat from the world. It was a return to the Father and the glory that was His. He entered human life to claim us and our allegiance. And though He was rejected He was not defeated. He took His place again, as a King would at His Father’s side. He never will be anything but a King. We sing “Crown Him with many crowns” and well can we do. Men’s rebellion against God may go on – justice may not seem to be apparent – But the truth is the world punishes itself – Jesus is King but a king who can wait. He knows that victory is His and His justice is tempered with mercy and patience.

In spite of all that men did Jesus persisted in His attitude of redeeming love and still does. He was not defeated and as Paul has it “Wherefore God has highly exalted Him” He reigns, and must until all bow the knee.

And the ascension assures me that God who begins a good work in will will perform it to the end. He became like us and was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin, and thereby proves what height of goodness can dwell in the human body like mine. A goodness that can fit us to dwell in the society of God.

Indeed God did not disdain to dwell in the society of men and it is a significant fact that Jesus took to Heaven a bodily form easily recognisable as His. - “And didst Thou take to heaven a human brow” - And art Thou His kinsman now?” Did I say significant – I should have said triumphant. Humanity in the society of God in Heaven. Our humanity then does not disqualify us from such a prospect. “I go to prepare a place for you – that where I am there ye may be also.”

Do you remember the story of Madam Curie the gifted woman who discovered radium. It is a wonderful story – but one in which the Christian faith has no place. No religious ceremony at wedding – children – no word of hope over husbands grave. Pierre Curie was killed in accident in Paris Street – she wrote in diary - “Everything is over. Pierre is sleeping his last sleep beneath the earth. It is the end of everything. Everything.”

She struggled on bravely – but I remember when I first read the story feeling how chill and dark the world would be if we had no hope such as that Jesus gives us in the words of his ascension.

Finally there is another thing I want to say. A thing perhaps of even greater importance. The disciples were quite satisfied that He had gone to be with his father. John says he came from God and went to God. Amongst men he was still the Son of God and now in Heaven he is Still the son of Man. He came amongst men to represent God and before God now he represent man. And so cires John we have an ADVOCATE with the Father. Have you noticed what a wonderful verse that is in Jean Ingelow’s hymn.

“By that one likeness which is ours and thine

By that one nature which doth hold us kin,

By that High heaven where sinless thou dost shine

To draw us sinners in.”

Isn’t that why we make all our prayers and requests in His name and for His sake.

His love for us brought Him to Bethlehem and in spite of Calvary, because He is both the Son of God and the Son of Man He loves us still and to those who desire Him he is ever present.

He has not withdrawn from conflict and left His followers to fight alone. He is nearer to us that breathing, closer than hands or feet.

He ascended on High that He might complete His work began and be with all His children everywhere at all times and in all places. That is to those who believe in Him.